Suicide’s Death Touches Friends

By Howard Schwach

Fire department and EMS vehicles line up below the Beach 36 Street subway station on May 19, waiting to remove the body of Feliz Oquendo from the tracks above.
By all accounts, Feliz Oquendo was a “normal person.”

“She was a nice, quiet woman,” said a friend who lives in the same assisted living home at 29-64 Beach Channel Drive. “She was a good person, and we are all trying to figure out why she would do something like jumping in front of a subway train.”

That is just what Oquendo, described as being in her 40s, did on May 19.

Eyewitnesses said that she ran down the platform at the Beach 36 Street station at about 6:53 p.m., leaping off the platform into an oncoming train.

A spokesperson for the New York City Medical Examiner said that she died of “multiple blunt force injuries due to suicide.”

Her friends say they cannot understand her final act.

“This touched me real hard,” said a friend who asked to be identified only as Debra. “She had no problems. I saw her earlier in the day and she seemed normal and happy. All of us sit here and ask why she would do something that abnormal.”

The A-Line station at Beach 36 Street was closed for more than two hours as police investigated and removed the body from the tracks.

Police sources say there will be no further investigation because Oquendo’s death has officially been ruled a suicide.